First of all, greetings! You're the very first giant squid I've ever written to. But, hey, who am I anyway? I'm just your regular joe-average run-of-the-mill beer-drinking squirrel who enjoys hyphens.

I need some advice: There's this Asian Prince who keeps hitting on me. I get the feeling he's working with Mister Chau and they're trying to get some kind of three-way going on. In the meantime, Bart and N-Judah are trying to make me choose between the two of them. Bart's saying he can go farther, but N-Judah's saying he can take me to more places. On top of that, Bullwinkle's calling me again. Apparently, he's saying he wants to get together again and that he didn't know what he saw in that other squirrel. Personally, I think it's because he's not a one-squirrel moose. AncientWisdom's been a help for me on some other issues, but I wanted a different perspective. So my question to you, Giant Squid, is this: Where do you go for lunch when you're in a special watertight, serenely dark office with enough pressure to crack a Russian sub high above Cincinnati, Ohio[1]? I mean how do you get access to the bountiful 99 cent menu at Jack in the Box? Or the occasional Caesar Salad (with anchovies, of course)?

Thanks in Advance,
Drunk Squirrel

Dearest Drunkest Squirrel,

A likewise cordial greeting. Much as you have never written to a giant squid afore, I have never before corresponded over e-mail or web-transmission for the express purpose of offering a member of the family Sciuridae advice. It is a day of firsts for us each and every.

Like all busy Persons of Quality, when I am closeted in my offices, a-flurry with the business of the day, I do send my minions (such as my erstwhile lab assistant, Rob Miller, or my troupe of francophonic chimps) to fetch for me that which I crave. There are no Jacks-in-the-Box restaurant locations in Ohio, Michigan or Washingtoniopolis—the three loci I have called home here in the dry-landish Upspace—so I have yet to sample their delights. Truthfully I, for the most part, subsist upon dogs, and thus send out my minions to fetch me a variety of canines, both pure-bread and muttlicious, purchased from dog ranchers or dog-boutiques and hunted in-the-wild, and occasionally stolen away from loving families, as there is nothing else to sate the yen for the piquant gustatory thrill of scofflawry. I am also wont to enjoy the occasional several dozen hamburgers MacDonical, as well as the 90-and-9 cent baker's potatoes of Wendies. I have sampled of the Caesar salads only but just recently, while on my walkabout—many of the finer swift-production food establishments, which cling to our nation's great highways and by-the-highways like nodules to roots, do provide this salad, as well as the Chef's Salad, the Rancher's Salad and the Taco's Salad Supreme. I am told that many such establishments might also offer of the "tossed salad," if one chooses to make special arrangements and incur additional expense. This option I have not yet explored, as I am uncertain if it is safe to eat human meat; I have been made to understand that, owing to biological magnification, they can contain distressing high concentrations of lead and Polychlorinated Biphenyls.

I am of the opinion that Caesar's Salads can be delicious, unless the sauce chef has deigned be over-liberal with the aforementioned anchovies in the Cream of Caesar. My olfactory and taste receptors are quite acute, and my discernment quite evolved and refined in its own right. As such I cannot "stomach", as you might put it, the overt over-presence of anchovies. They are, for lack of a better term, "fishy."

As for your friends, I can note but this: as near as I can reckon, both the Asian Prince and Mister Chau are fine androgynous specimens; if they are additionally possessed of the electronic acumen to "get a three-way going" for you, and that you are desirous of such control of your domicile's lighting—which does sound admittedly convenient—then I do advise you "go for it."

As for N-Judah, he mostly appears to be riding via omnibus about the Market Streets of Sam's Francisco. These are indeed the habits of a man who can take you to a variety of places, but it is hard to argue that any of those places is very far from any other. As such, I say go with Bart, as he appears to be either a train or an animated icon of some repute—which is to say, a wealthy corporate logo, indeed.

I Remain in Good Will,
Your Giant Squid

Nota Bene: Drunk the Squirrel makes reference to the fact that I once called Cin-Cin-Atti of OH-High-Oh home—this was as of early 2002. I have since moved to the Motown of Detroit, then on to Washington Deca when I was elected President of these Yet-Still-United States, and am now on walkabout, putting right what has once gone wrong among my lowly and grateful electorate.—G.S.